


how near you stand to me

by AceQueenKing



Category: Rome (TV 2005)
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Power Dynamics, Scar touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: “I appreciate your talents—”“Hmm.” Anthony’s lips graced his ear. “Do you?”
Relationships: Mark Antony/Julius Caesar
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	how near you stand to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silvered](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvered/gifts).



To say that Caesar walked to his tent with any sense of strut was inaccurate. He did not strut, though several of the troops glanced at his way with knowing smiles. So be it. It was important for men to think he had his vigor.

When he opened the tent, he found himself not alone; he could see Anthony’s sandals, sitting sprawled in his chair.

“So,” Anthony trawled as Caesar stood inside his tent, keeping his eyebrows raised as to where Mark Anthony had chosen to sit. The man gave him a knowing smile. “How was her quim?”

“Suitable.” Caesar’s nostrils flared in annoyance. There was more than a little bit of jealousy in the heat of his voice. “Come to _baaah_ at me like a jealous old nanny goat?”

“Maybe,” Anthony flicked his fingers with bedeviling grace, as if smoothing his feathers. “Maybe troop movements.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. There was little he wanted to talk about less, but Mark Anthony had been a good friend, a great commander, and far more. “I do apologize, I am – tardy, but the woman has left me distracted.”

“Hmm.” Anthony advanced from his seat, and gently touched Caesar’s back. With his iron will, he did flinch.

“Truthfully, I am only sorry you didn’t involve me.” His fingers glid a path down Caesar’s back, purposefully—perhaps, Anthony was damnably coy—drawing to the wound that they’d received in the legion's last battle.

“I appreciate your talents—”

“Hmm.” Anthony’s lips graced his ear. “Do you?”

“Sizably.” His hand, iron-willed as it was, struggled not to lean back and embrace Mark Anthony.

“She’s a true beauty. The thought of her having you…” Anthony’s warm finger wormed its way until his cuirass, and he felt the warmth of his well-worn digit. A moment later he was undoing it; only when it fell to the floor did he turn back to him.

“Well, I hope she treated you well.” Caesar moved one hand over to caress Mark Anthony’s cheek. For a moment, the patrician façade fell; one shining moment, the boy looked so hungry for further touch. He did not answer; only raising his eyebrows.

Slowly, deliberately, and, Caesar would admit to himself, if not out loud, quite a bit wantonly, Mark Anthony placed his thumb into his mouth. For a moment, both men stared at one another: Julius Caesar willed himself to show no pleasure, and Mark Anthony closed his eyes, a spiritual look on his face.

If Mark Anthony had a divine patron, it would be Venus. There were precious few other ways to explain how irresistible the young son of a bitch often was.

Certainly, and, irritatingly, even Caesar could not escape his thrall.

“Suck,” he said, and to his displeasure noted the quiver in his own voice. He would have to sleep around while Mark Anthony was there more often; perhaps this could be a game between them.

Mark Anthony obeyed, his talented – if forked – tongue slowly spreading around his thumb, and the sucking sensation that sent nothing but the most enjoyable of pleasures straight to his cockhead.

He breathed out a slight sigh of pleasure as Mark Anthony worked his thumb with all the skill of a _meretrix_ ; he supposed cock sucking wasn’t much different than politics, and clearly from the way he was treating his thumb, the man had sizable skill in both.

“Good,” he said, and allowed Mark to hear the pleasure in his voice. Mark Anthony’s cheeks did not blush—the boy was not a tender, young thing, waiting for an older man to guide him. He knew what this was; he did not care.

“Good sight better than her, I should think,” he whispered, and then gave Caesar one of Mark Anthony’s most cocksure grins. “Least, I should hope so. I’d be quite insulted to be judged more sub-standard than some barbarian whore.”

“A barbarian princess,” he said; a minor correction, but Mark Anthony waived out his hands.

“I stand corrected.” The smugness in the voice suggested he merely did not wish to argue about it.

And nor did, Caesar, truly. While he generally enjoyed Mark Anthony’s clever tongue, there was something he’d rather have him do with his mouth at the moment.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t.” Mark Anthony turned his head, confused; Caesar put one hand on his shoulder and raised an eyebrow.

“Kneel,” he said, this command whispered; it would not take more than that. Mark Anthony looked at him for a moment, then slowly dropped to his knees.

“Perhaps you should see if you are better at a more challenging skill.” Such was the way to ask among noblemen—he did not need to come out and say it.

“I shall be glad to remind you o the roman way of doing things,” Mark Anthony promised.

Caesar closed his eyes, and felt Mark Anthony slowly run his fingers up his thighs. Such slowness could only be called a caress.

“As I commanded,” he said, though he suspected the man was not entirely pleased about the command. Such was selfish.

But there was such an art to Mark Anthony’s tongue that Caesar could not find himself to care. Were Mark Anthony to ever get something over him, perhaps he would be the one who would kneel.

But Caesar did not think such likely. And Caesar had been very, very good at sizing up his competition.

Mark Anthony was useful, and ambitious, but – there was something a bit too loyal to him. Caesar could see it in the way he wound his fingers up the scars that crossed his legs. Cleopatra had not bothered. Servilla may have, but she could not understand the ways of war as Mark Anthony could. His wife, well, she doubtless had not even noticed.

Still, Caesar did not comment upon it.

For the moment, he simply enjoyed the talented use of Mark Anthony’s hands, and anticipated the use of his tongue.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” He hissed; such tenderness was not entirely appropriate, and while he enjoyed the touch, Ceasar had few qualms about putting the man in his place.

Dominance was essential. Power was everything. And Mark Anthony’s sentimentality, while useful, could not be entirely indulged.

Still, he thought, as Mark Anthony busied himself wiping the thought of Cleopatra from his mind—well, there was no harm in indulging it a little.

He did have a very persuasive tongue.


End file.
